Help writing a reference: So what follows from this peculiar power of grammar to monopolize people’s attention? from the nasty fact that grammar, like sex and money, can only be ignored when it’s fine?
Help writing a reference: Perhaps the most obvious thing that follows is the desirability of learning grammar if you don’t know it. (Not the theory of grammar, though that is an interesting subject, but how to write right.) Learning grammar well would free some people from a gnawing if sometimes unconscious insecurity and enable them to hold their heads up in some arenas where they now feel they can’t. Happily, it’s not hard to find good instruction in grammar. There are lots of courses for people of all ages and lots of good programmed textbooks from which you can learn it by yourself in six months of diligent slogging. For many people, a class brings up intolerable feelings of "Oh, I don’t know grammar, I’m an idiot." But a class is probably the best method for ensuring that you keep going. If you take a class, try to shop around to see if you can find a teacher who suits you.
Help writing a reference: But you can’t learn grammar overnight. If you want your words to be taken seriously you have to find some other way to remove the mistakes from your final draft. Mistakes in grammar lead readers to notice other weaknesses. And most readers cannot keep from assuming, even if unconsciously, that you are stupid if they find mistakes in your grammar. If you weren’t brought up to speak and write standard, middle-class, white English, you’ll probably be twice penalized for any mistakes in standard written English you make-and not just with white middle-class readers either. Removing errors may well be the most "cost effective" of all revising activities.
Help writing a reference: You can learn lots of grammar in six months, but it would take two or three times that long to learn everything you need. I, for example, even though I have a pretty good knowledge of grammar, cannot remove enough errors from my final draft to make readers take me as seriously as I want to be taken. I get a friend or two to help me by proofreading. You can’t see your own mistakes. Learning grammar is a formidable task that takes crucial energy away from working on your writing, and worse yet, the process of learning grammar interferes with writing: it heightens your preoccupation with mistakes as you write out each word and phrase, and makes it almost impossible to achieve that undistracted attention to your thoughts and experiences as you write that is so crucial for strong writing (and sanity). For most people, nothing helps their writing so much as learning to ignore grammar as they write. Let’s learn more about help writing a reference.